Nili kwenda safari – on traveling and other walks of life

Main menu

Post navigation

Easter walk all the way up to the Brocken

Goethe, Germany’s “bard” and “national poet” forever, has his most famous character Faust make an Easter walk. Upon leaving Magdeburg, I felt I should follow suit. Some of the action in Faust is set in the Harz mountain range, and since it happens to be right in the middle of a bee’s line from Magdeburg to Göttingen, my home of over six years now, I went there and walked all the way up tp the summit of the Brocken, at 1141m northern Germany’s highest peak.

The weather was just great, sunny and warm. Yet the further up I climbed, the more Faust’s introductory lines from the “Osterspaziergang” (see below) turned out to be true: winter had not ceased to exist, winter had moved upwards. As I got near the summit, I realized that there was snow, and that my short was rather light. The Brocken as an average temperature of a chilling 2.5°C, and in the almost stormy winds the temperature must have been not far from that.

First there was a hurricane, then an extremely hot and dry summer 2018 in Germany, and many trees fell victim to bark beetles that eventually kill the trees.Some say this is a great opportunity to stop single-species (spruce) planting and allow for more resilient mixed forests. It’s an old story, die „Große Wurmtrocknis“ (the great beetle dryness), such as between 1770 and 1800 (more here and here in German).

From the ice they are freed, the stream and brook, By the Spring’s enlivening, lovely look; The valley’s green with joys of hope; The Winter old and weak ascends Back to the rugged mountain slope. From there, as he flees, he downward sends An impotent shower of icy hail Streaking over the verdant vale. Ah! but the Sun will suffer no white, Growth and formation stir everywhere, ‘Twould fain with colours make all things bright, Though in the landscape are no blossoms fair. Instead it takes gay-decked humanity. Now turn around and from this height, Looking backward, townward see. Forth from the cave-like, gloomy gate Crowds a motley and swarming array. Everyone suns himself gladly today. The Risen Lord they celebrate, For they themselves have now arisen From lowly houses’ mustiness, From handicraft’s and factory’s prison, From the roof and gables that oppress, From the bystreets’ crushing narrowness, From the churches’ venerable night, They are all brought out into light. See, only see, how quickly the masses Scatter through gardens and fields remote; How down and across the river passes So many a merry pleasure-boat. And over-laden, almost sinking, The last full wherry moves away. From yonder hill’s far pathways blinking, Flash to us colours of garments gay. Hark! Sounds of village joy arise; Here is the people’s paradise, Contented, great and small shout joyfully: “Here I am Man, here dare it to be!”